Oliver Reed - Biography - IMDb Oliver Reed Biography Showing all 114 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trade Mark (4) | Trivia (65) | Personal Quotes (35) | Salary (2) Overview (5) 5' 11" (1.8 m) Mini Bio (1) Oliver Reed was born on February 13, 1938 in Wimbledon, London, England as Robert Oliver Reed. He was an actor, known for Gladiator (2000), Oliver! (1968) and Tommy (1975). He was married to Josephine Burge and Kate Byrne. He died on May 2, 1999 in Valletta, Malta. Spouse (2) Outspoken views a trademark especially his opinions of his co-stars or women in general. Marvellous speaking voice Often sported a thick handle-bar moustache Ocean blue eyes Trivia (65) Shared the same dentist as horror star Christopher Lee Needed 36 stitches to repair cuts on his face after a bar fight in 1963.

The incident left him with a permanent scar, which he initially feared would put an end to his screen career. He had two brothers. David Reed became his business manager and his half-brother Simon Reed became his press agent. Nephew of the film director Sir Carol Reed , who directed him in one of his best roles, as the villainous Bill Sikes in Oliver! (1968). Father of Mark Thurloe Reed (born January 21, 1961) with his first wife Kate Byrne and of Sarah Reed (born 1970) from his 12-year relationship to dancer Jacqueline Daryl . He died of a heart attack in a bar after downing three bottles of Captain Morgan's Jamaica rum, eight bottles of German beer, numerous doubles of Famous Grouse whiskey and Hennessy cognac, and beating five much younger Royal Navy sailors at arm-wrestling. His bar bill for that final lunch time totaled 270 Maltese lira, almost £450, about $594.72.

He was severely injured and almost died during the filming of The Three Musketeers (1973) when he was stabbed in the throat during the windmill duel scene. Grandson of actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree , who founded the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 1904. His first job (at the age of 17) was as a bouncer at a Soho nightclub. Was dyslexic. Cousin of actress Tracy Reed and of the actor David Tree . He was related by marriage to fellow actor Edward Fox , who was once married to his cousin, Tracy Reed , daughter of director Sir Carol Reed . Narrowly missed out on playing superspy James Bond because of his love of alcohol and fighting. A new biography of the star uncovered a letter from Bond mastermind Albert R. Broccoli outlining how close he came to replacing Sean Connery in the role. Broccoli wrote, "With Reed we would have had a far greater problem to destroy his image and re-mold him as James Bond.

We just didn't have the time or money to do that." According to Cliff Goodwin , author of the book "Evil Spirits", "Oliver was probably within a sliver of being cast as Bond." He adds, "But by 1968 his affairs were public and he was already drinking and fighting - as far away from the refined Bond image as you could get.". By the mid-1970s he was considered by many to be Britain's biggest movie star. He declined roles in The Sting (1973) and Jaws (1975) because he didn't want to relocate to Los Angeles. Both of these roles were taken by fellow British hellraiser Robert Shaw . However, a Hollywood executive claimed, "Reed didn't turn us down. We turned him down. We like our stars to have respect - Oliver Reed didn't respect anyone and he showed it." The actor he admired most was Errol Flynn . He was a close friend of The Who 's drummer Keith Moon . In 1973 Steve McQueen flew to England to meet Reed and discuss a possible film collaboration. "Reed showed me his country mansion and we got on well," recalled McQueen.

"He then suggested he take me to his favorite London nightclub." The drinking, which started at Reed's home, Broome Hall, continued into the night until Reed could hardly stand. Suddenly, and with no apparent warning, he vomited over McQueen's shirt and trousers. "The staff rushed around and found me some new clothes, but they couldn't get me any shoes," said McQueen. "I had to spend the rest of the night smelling of Oliver Reed's sick." Along with Michael Winner, former snooker champion Alex Higgins, himself suffering from throat cancer, were the only celebrities to attend Reed's funeral in Ireland. His wrestling scene with Alan Bates in Women in Love (1969) was the first time full frontal male nudity had featured in a mainstream movie. Reed died during the filming of Ridley Scott 's Gladiator (2000), and it cost the company $3 million to recreate his face so he could "appear" in the scenes he still had left to shoot. Agreed to appear in the small but vital role of casino boss Eddie Mars in The Big Sleep (1978) just because he admired the film's star Robert Mitchum so much.

Described his role as Father Grandier in Ken Russell 's The Devils (1971) as the best performance he ever gave. He named his favorite American actors as Lee Marvin , Rock Hudson and Rod Steiger . In 1968 he was signed to star as William the Conqueror in a British film about the Norman Conquest, but the project fell through. He never had any acting training or stage experience. For a brief period in the late 1960s Reed was the highest paid actor in Europe, but by the early 1980s he was reduced to starring in dire European films. At the time of his death he was signed to play Albert Finney 's role in My Uncle Silas (2001). During the Falklands War in 1982, the highly patriotic Reed covered his house in a huge Union Jack flag and decorated every room with military memorabilia. According to director Ken Russell , the original script for Women in Love (1969) did not include the famous nude wrestling scene because he felt it wouldn't pass the censors and would be difficult to shoot.

It wasn't until Reed talked him into it by literally throwing his weight around--he wrestled Russell in his kitchen, pinned him down, and wouldn't let him up unless he agreed to shoot it. At age 22, Reed was paid £90 per week for his first starring role in The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). But the film would not be seen in Spain for many years. It was banned because it was thought the film portrayed Spain as a backward nation. He never forgot his Hammer roots. After hitting the big time, he went back to pay homage to his horror beginnings to narrate the full Hammer retrospective, a reminder that his voice was the one quality the English critics admired about him. Reed remains the only British film star who never had any stage work of any kind. A 1980s National Portrait Gallery show noted this, saying he was their only pure film actor. He starred in the first film to say "fuck", I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967). He also starred in the first British film to be rated X just for the violent content, Sitting Target (1972).

The public house in Malta in which he died, previously known as "The Pub", was renamed "Ollie's Last Pub" in his memory. Some obituaries mentioned the similarity between Reed's death and Robert Newton 's. Newton, who had played Bill Sykes in David Lean 's non-musical version of Oliver Twist (1948), was a notoriously heavy drinker. He remained sober while filming Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), which was supposed to be a big comeback for him as an actor. Toward the end of filming, however, he indulged in one final drinking marathon and died from a heart attack, aged only 50. Similarly, Reed remained sober while filming Gladiator (2000) - intended as a big comeback - but died from a heart attack after allowing himself one final binge. Owned a villa in the south of France next door to Jack Hawkins ' villa. On location for The Hunting Party (1971), Reed bemoaned the necessity of faking an American accent and this, coupled with his love of Broome Hall and English pubs, was enough to cement his decision not to move to Hollywood.

Bought Broome Hall, a 63-bedroom Victorian mansion in Surrey, in 1970. He was a fan of James Dean in East of Eden (1955) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Lost weight to appear in Castaway (1986) on a diet of vodka. Had a tattoo on his penis. According to Patrick Warburton , Reed showed him the tattoo the first day they worked together. He was nearly killed in a friendly sword-fight with director Ken Russell . He described the incident in the December 1973 issue of Photoplay Film Monthly: "Ken Russell came down here last Sunday and we had a fight. I have two large, double-handed swords and he nearly killed me.

He tore my shirt right down to here, and I was only fighting with a small sword, from The Three Musketeers (1973), and I said, "I'm going to kill you!" So, he said, "I'm going to kill you!!" All his viewfinders and his pince nez, and his silver hearts with "I am allergic to aspirin" on them, his Mickey Mouse shoes, his pontification about people's varicose veins, that was all blown to the wind. He left here at four. He said, "you didn't really mean that about killing me, did you?" But we were very serious at the time. But whatever it is that allows for that lunacy or sense of the ridiculous comes across in the work that we do. He's extraordinarily talented.". Once reckoned that the strenuous filming of The Devils (1971) took four years off his natural life. Had an intense dislike for Jack Nicholson , whom he called "a balding midget". (Reed claimed Nicholson was only 5'7" tall).

Infamously clashed with Shelley Winters on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson: Episode #11.137 (1972). He got angry at her for constantly jokingly interrupting the stories he was trying to tell and, when Winters had to leave the show early, Reed told Johnny Carson that he thought that women belong in the kitchen. She returned and poured a cup of water over his head. He then claimed it was whiskey that she poured over him. Said that when he made the infamous drunken appearance on the Michael Aspel chat show when he sang a raucous rendition of "Wild Thing", that the producers of that show had plied him with spirits in the green room prior to the interview so that he was already plastered when he came on stage. In 1979 he published an autobiography, entitled "Reed All About Me". Asked to describe the book by an interviewer he replied, "It's a load of bollocks really.". He once described his purpose in life as "shafting the girlies and downing the sherbie.".

Was heavily criticized in the late 1980s for appearing in exploitation films produced by the infamous impresario Harry Alan Towers , most of which were filmed in South Africa under the apartheid regime, and released straight to video in the US and UK. In order to avoid charges of nepotism Reed deliberately avoided working for his uncle, director Sir Carol Reed , until he was already established as a star in British movies. He stated in 1974 his favorite book was "The House on Pooh Corner" by A.A. Milne . He enjoyed playing golf and (lawn) bowls. He loved horses all his life and also enjoyed breeding and rearing them. He suffered from acute tinnitus for many years. He won army sprint races while serving his national service. Buried in Bruhenny Cemetery in Buttevant, Cork (Ireland). His grave-site was picked so that it was in full view of his favorite pub. His paternal great-grandfather, Julius Ewald Edward Beerbohm, was of German, Lithuanian, and Dutch ancestry. He appeared in four Robert Louis Stevenson adaptations: The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), Dr. Heckyl and Mr.

Hype (1980), Black Arrow (1985) and Treasure Island (1990). He appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: Oliver! (1968) and Gladiator (2000). He played Yvonne Romain 's son in The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) and her brother in The Brigand of Kandahar (1965). He turned down the role of Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting (1973) but later played the role in The Sting II (1983). He was arrested for walking in public without clothes while filming The Brood (1979) and for fighting in a bar just after filming had ended on Spasms (1983). At his trial in 2014 Max Clifford claimed he had helped cover up Reed's liking for underage girls. Personal Quotes (35) You meet a better class of people in pubs. I do not live in the world of sobriety. My only regret is that I didn't drink every pub dry and sleep with every woman on the planet. I believe that my woman shouldn't work outside the home.

When I come home and I'm tired from filming all day, I expect her to be there and make sure that everything is cool for me. You know, like drawing my bath and helping me into bed. That's the kind of job she had and, in return for it, she can bear my children and if any man talks bad to her, I'll hit him. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) was about the only time I've been allowed to do what I want with a part. You can be over-directed by people, but Terry [ Terry Gilliam ] let me have my own way. There was a scene we rehearsed on Saturday where we really hit our stride. When we resumed, Terry said on the Sunday, "You seemed to be having much more fun with the character yesterday. Could you take it a bit further? I didn't need to be told twice! Once I realized I could get away with it, off I went! There is, of course, a world of difference between cricket and the movie business . . . I suppose doing a love scene with Raquel Welch roughly corresponds to scoring a century before lunch.

American men like their women to have these special teeth and be perfectly coiffured and have amazing breasts. Have you seen an Italian mama with those kinds of teeth, that kind of hair, and that kind of waist? They're not like that. They're in the kitchen cooking for their families - doing what they should do. I believe my woman shouldn't work outside the home. I also use women as a sex object; maybe I'm kinky. However, I like to talk to them as well. I like the effect drink has on me. What's the point of staying sober? I'm the biggest star this country has got, destroy me and you destroy the whole British film industry. Richard Burton was hitting the bottle with Jimmy Hurt the night before his death. He knew it was going to kill him, but he did not stop. I don't have a drink problem. But if that was the case and doctors told me I would have to stop, I'd like to think I would be brave enough to drink myself into the grave. Life shouldn't be about sitting around staring at frosted glass. Life should be lived and that's all there is to it. Nicholson [ Jack Nicholson ]?

As far as I'm concerned, he's a balding midget. He stands five-foot-seven, you know. He tries to play heavies and doesn't quite make it. I'm not a villain. I've never hurt anyone. I'm just a tawdry character who explodes now and again. I like to give my inhibitions a bath now and then. I do think a carpenter needs a good hammer to bang on the wall. I have made many serious statements -- I just can't remember any of them. I guess they mustn't have been very important. I have two ambitions in life: one is to drink every pub dry, the other is to sleep with every woman on earth. Once a pirate, always a pirate. I'm a buccaneer - a bucco - through and through. I'm the same old Ollie I was years ago. Ollie Reed doesn't change. My acting school was, and still is, life in the raw - the whole wide world as a stage. I didn't go into a shop full of mirrors, I stayed outside and gazed at the reflections of life.

I've got a lot of performances stored away at the back of my mind, ready to come out in front of the cameras when they are needed. I was disappointed in Sonja Henie . Her legs were muscle-bound and unattractive and didn't give me the urge to give her one. At one point I would have liked the role of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1970). Then I saw it done by Laurence Olivier on television and he was so good that I decided to forget about it. [on The Devils (1971)] It vividly shows a side of the church that was never scrutinized attentively or even less accepted. The film shows that the monarchy can be weak, that the church can be corrupt, that society can admit that it has a lot to learn. I think these kinds of things were hidden from audiences for a long time. The masses go to the movies, not the intellectual elites. I didn't go to acting school, only to normal school. I'm not for acting schools because I suspect that the majority of the teachers are there because they can't find work as actors or because they think they can teach people to act but haven't had much experience themselves in the field.

What I mean is that my skepticism derives from the fact that I believe that for an actor it's much more important to learn with the audience . . . the audience is the real teacher and it's the audience that has taught me what I know. The audience's reaction tells me what I need to do, just as the audience's reaction makes you into a first-rate star. It's easy: the important thing is that a sufficient number of people, an audience, in a sufficient number of countries is willing to spend money to go see this actor. At this point the movie producers interfere and ask you to work on this or that film. And then one becomes an actor with international success depending on the public's reaction. Theatre doesn't interest me. It doesn't interest me because in England theatre means warm gin during intermission, not being able to smoke in the theatre, eat chocolates and try to find out who else is present in order to then greet them in the foyer. Going to this or that theatre premiere is very much an "in" thing to do. But this is only one of the reasons; the second reason is a bit more professional.

Logically speaking, I think that for an actor or an actress working in the theatre is boring, but I am not referring to theatre actors who have always worked there, and this my own boring opinion, but because it means reciting the same lines every night six nights a week, not counting matinées . . . boring, don't you think? I think that the most important achievement of my career was getting paid for something that I really wanted to do. [on his role as Father Grandier in The Devils (1971)] You would think from the critics' hostility that Ken Russell had tried to pull off some obscene hoax. On the contrary, the film is, I think, an utterly serious attempt to understand the nature of religious and political persecution. It is not in any way exaggerated. If anything, the horrors perpetrated in Loudun in the 17th century were worse than Russell has chosen to show . . . the character of the priest was a marvelous one to act. Ken Russell's brother-in-law is an historian and he helped me research Grandier's life, with particular reference to his thesis in celibacy. The people of Loudun loved him. He walked among the plague victims and comforted them.

I started to play him as a priest and realized that he was a politician. I bluster my way through, and I sing rather like a rugby forward. Tommy (1975) is an amazing visual film and the music is astonishing. I think for anyone to translate The Who 's music in terms of images, it must be somebody like [ Ken Russell ]--or a lunatic! [on his role as Father Grandier in The Devils (1971)] It was certainly the most difficult and the most strenuous part I have ever played. And I think, quite important. [on public reaction to The Devils (1971)] I remember noticing the gleam in [ Ken Russell 's] eye while everybody was working away on the set, so I knew something good was going on. What they said afterward was totally incredible. We were regarded as pornographers in Italy. We'd have been arrested if we went there. [on directors Michael Winner and Ken Russell ] Winner gave me my bread and Russell gave me my art. [on making The Devils (1971)] It was a difficult and tiring role. I don't think anyone in their right mind would say that they had fun shooting that film.

It wasn't created with the intent of having fun or being pleasurable; on the contrary, it was analyzed acutely and made with extreme seriousness. It was definitely a film about a certain society and the things that society did. We tried to show that humans are diabolical or can be as diabolical as in the film. I didn't have fun, it was four months of hard work and if anyone has the courage or the desire to sit his ass down on a firecracker and scream for four months with Ken Russell yelling in your ears, well . . . [on criticism of The Devils (1971)] It was very disturbing to make. I still haven't got over it... Where do you draw the line? This is the way it happened - those nuns were used for political ends, toted round France as a side show for a year. Do you ignore the actual historical accuracy and the fact that the Church, the politicians and the aristocracy were corrupt? I get so angry with the opinion makers who class it with the sex films. If we ignore history because it was unpleasant we're going to end up with nothing but nature films. One day I should like to live in Ireland.

I love the Irish, the more I see of other races the more I believe the Irish are the only real people left, and apart from that they have space and clear air in which to wander and think and to feel free. [on claims he only got into movies because of his uncle] I am not a product of nepotism. Salary (2) Oliver Reed - Telegraph Celebrity Obituaries Oliver Reed Oliver Reed, the film actor who has died aged 61, exuded an animal magnetism and a sense of danger rare among British actors; these qualities made him a natural choice when the script required a woman to be either terrorised or seduced. Photo: POPPERFOTO/GETTY 12:01AM BST 03 May 1999 It was seduction which he practised on Glenda Jackson's Gudrun when he played Gerald in the film of D H Lawrence's Women in Love (1969). On the other hand, he was just as convincing wrestling naked with Alan Bates in the same film. But Reed's screen career often seemed like a mere rehearsal for the more important business of hell-raising in real life.

He once summarised his career as "shafting the girlies and downing the sherbie'.' A prodigious drinker, he spent much of his later life being escorted from various pubs and hotels after initiating what he regarded as "tests of strength". Robert Oliver Reed was born in Wimbledon on February 13, 1938, a great-grandson of the actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree and a nephew of the film director Carol Reed. After being expelled from 14 schools, Reed succeeded in becoming captain of athletics and junior cross-country champion at Ewel Castle. He then worked for a while as a bouncer for a strip club, and did his National Service in the Army Medical Corps. His hopes of becoming an officer were dashed when it was discovered that he suffered from dyslexia and was both illiterate and innumerate. On leaving the Army in 1958, Reed earned his crust as a fairground boxer and mortuary attendant. For a while he studiously ignored Reed's suggestions that he should attend Rada (founded by his great-grandfather), and only drifted into acting when he discovered that most of his drinking companions were earning good wages as film extras.

Related Articles The authorised biography of Oliver Reed 04 Jul 2013 He made his television debut in a children's series, The Golden Spur. This led to a number of small film roles, as a layabout in Beat Girl (1960), as a factory worker in The Angry Silence (1960), as a ballet dancer in The League of Gentlemen (1960). Appropriately, he was a bouncer in The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll (1960). In 1962 Reed was given his first leading role in the Hammer horror film, The Curse of the Werewolf. He starred as the troubled lycanthrope. The film's special effects included a hair-sprouting scene in a jail, and several shots of Reed tiptoeing on his hind paws from the scene of murder. Altogether Reed made six films for Hammer. In The Damned (1963) he appeared as the leader of a motor-cycle gang; in Paranoiac (1963) he was a murderer bent on driving his sister (Janette Scott) crazy.

Meanwhile Michael Winner, who had seen Reed in a television play, cast him as a promenade Casanova in a sleazy drama entitled The System (1963). Reed then played a brutal fur-trapper in The Trap, with Rita Tushingham. After terrorising Carol Lynley in The Shuttered Room (1967), Reed was seen in two Michael Winner comedies, The Jokers (1967), with Michael Crawford, and I'll Never Forget What's-'is-name (with Orson Welles, who became a close friend). Reed's breakthrough came in 1968, when, directed by his uncle, he made a convincingly savage Bill Sikes in the film version of the musical Oliver!. In terms of soft-spoken menace, Reed's performance nearly equalled that of Robert Newton in the earlier version by David Lean. The film won six Oscars and made Reed an international star. By the late Sixties, he was Britain's highest-paid actor. His next project was Ken Russell's adaptation of Women In Love (1970). Reed admitted to being nervous about the wrestling scene, which Russell had originally wanted to film in an ice-cold lake.

"Alan and I drank a bottle of vodka each," Reed remembered, "before we staggered on to the set." Reed then achieved the distinction of becoming the first actor to appear fully naked in a mainstream film. Thereafter, his penchant for dropping his trousers sometimes got him into trouble. On holiday in the Caribbean and wanting to show off a newly acquired tattoo, Reed exposed himself in a hotel bar. Unknown to him, the symbol of a cockerel which he thereby displayed denoted to his audience an involvement in voodoo; he was forced to escape over a balcony. In his second film for Russell, The Devils (1971), Reed played a licentious priest who induces hysterical behaviour in a group of nuns. The film dwelt rather more on the physical effects of satanic possession than on its moral implications. Reed followed this with the part of a bullying Army sergeant in Triple Echo (1972), again with Glenda Jackson. This role was perhaps Reed's last attempt at serious acting.

Thereafter he appeared to be less interested in the quality than in the quantity of parts he was offered, partly because he needed to pay the cost of the divorce from his first wife, Kathleen Byrne, and partly because he needed money to continue his roistering. In one celebrated incident in 1974, Reed invited 36 rugby players to a party at his home. Between Saturday night and Sunday lunchtime, they managed to consume between them 60 gallons of beer, 32 bottles of Scotch, 17 bottles of gin, four crates of wine and a lone bottle of Babycham. The entertainment concluded with Reed leading the players on a nude dawn run through the Surrey countryside. In 1974, Reed made a convincingly doughty Athos in The Three Musketeers. On one occasion during filming in Spain, the police were summoned to Reed's hotel to arrest him for dancing naked in a giant goldfish tank. "Leave me alone," shouted, Reed. "You can't touch me! I'm one of the Four Musketeers." Later that year he told a reporter, "Destroy me and you destroy the whole British film industry.

I can afford to say cock-a-doodle-do because I'm the biggest star this country has got, and don't you forget it, you pig." Profiles that celebrated Reed's hell-raising prowess rarely mentioned his loutish, bullying streak, although on set he was always courteous and word perfect. In the late Seventies, Reed moved to Guernsey as a tax exile, where he lived with his companion Jackie Daryl and their daughter Sarah. He returned occasionally to England to appear on chat shows to promote such films as Tommy (1975) and The Prince and the Pauper (1977). Reed's notoriety increased yet further in 1985 when he married Jospehine Burge; she was then 21, but had been his companion since she was a 16-year old schoolgirl. At his stag party, which lasted two days, Reed claimed to have downed 136 pints of beer. But to the surprise of many, the marriage proved a success, although in 1986 Reed was forced to dig up nine acres of his back garden after forgetting where he had buried his wife's jewellery when drunk.

Later that year, Reed went some way towards redeeming his critical reputation with his performance in Castaway, based on Lucy Irving's book about her time on a desert island. In 1991, Reed appeared on the late-night Channel 4 discussion programme After Dark (popularly known as After Closing Time). The subject was violence, and Reed was determined not to disappoint. Drinking wine from a half-pint glass, he freely expressed his views on the subject, periodically falling off his chair before kissing a surprised feminist author and announcing "Right, I'm off to have a slash." Channel 4 took the programme off the air after 20 minutes; when it returned, Reed terminated the discussion with the words: "Look, I'll put my plonker on the table if you don't give me a plate of mushy peas." Oliver Reed is survived by his wife Josephine and two daughters. Oliver Reed (Actor) - Pics, Videos, Dating, & News Oliver Reed Male Born Feb 13, 1938 Robert Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles.

His films include The Trap, Oliver!, Women in Love, Hannibal Brooks, The Triple Echo, The Devils, The Three Musketeers, Tommy, Castaway, Lion of the Desert and Gladiator. At the peak of his careeer, in 1971, British exhibitors voted Reed one of the most popular stars at the box office (5th).… Read More related links Talking With Tarantino: The Sight And Sound Excerpt Huffington Post - Jan 09, 2016 ' The newÂ Sight &amp; SoundÂ features my ten-page interview with its February cover star, Quentin Tarantino, and they have graciously allowed me to excerpt a portion of the extensive Q&amp;A here. This is a nice chunk of it, but there\'s so much more in the magazine, from getting to know his characters, to the Roadshow appeal of The Hateful Eight and themes in the movie, to movie violence, to Leonardo DiCaprio\'s character in Django, to shooting on Ultra Panavision, to his own theater in Los...

Bill Murray Got Taken Down A Peg By Andy Warhol At The Best Party He Ever Crashed Huffington Post - Oct 22, 2015 ' In his Reddit AMA on Wednesday, longtime Hollywood insider Bill Murray shared some stories about the role that got away (in Peter Weir\'s \"The Year of Living Dangerously\"), working with Wes Anderson (\"he loves to eat\") and why he\'d want to be on \"Flavor of Love,\" Flavor Flav\'s short-lived reality series (\"really nutty\"). But this one story takes the cake. In the \'70s, Murray wrote, he crashed an event \"called the subway party,\" thrown for the premiere of \"Tommy,\" a musical...

read full article Related Articles Bill Murray Got Taken Down A Peg By Andy Warhol At The Best Party He Ever Crashed Huffington Post - Oct 22, 2015 ' In his Reddit AMA on Wednesday, longtime Hollywood insider Bill Murray shared some stories about the role that got away (in Peter Weir\'s \"The Year of Living Dangerously\"), working with Wes Anderson (\"he loves to eat\") and why he\'d want to be on \"Flavor of Love,\" Flavor Flav\'s short-lived reality series (\"really nutty\"). But this one story takes the cake. In the \'70s, Murray wrote, he crashed an event \"called the subway party,\" thrown for the premiere of \"Tommy,\" a musical...

read full article Related Articles Bill Murray Got Taken Down A Peg By Andy Warhol At The Best Party He Ever Crashed Huffington Post - Oct 22, 2015 ' In his Reddit AMA on Wednesday, longtime Hollywood insider Bill Murray shared some stories about the role that got away (in Peter Weir\'s \"The Year of Living Dangerously\"), working with Wes Anderson (\"he loves to eat\") and why he\'d want to be on \"Flavor of Love,\" Flavor Flav\'s short-lived reality series (\"really nutty\"). But this one story takes the cake. In the \'70s, Murray wrote, he crashed an event \"called the subway party,\" thrown for the premiere of \"Tommy,\" a musical... read full article Related Articles Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Oliver Reed. CHILDHOOD 1938 Birth Born on February 13, 1938. TWENTIES 1959 21 Years Old In 1959â1960, Reed married Kate Byrne. The couple had one son, Mark, before their divorce in 1969.

… Read More While filming his part of Bill Sikes in Oliver!, he met Jacquie Daryl, a classically trained dancer who was also in the film. They became lovers and subsequently had a daughter named Sarah. Read Less 1963 25 Years Old Reed's face was scarred in a 1963 bar fight after which he received 63 stitches and was in danger of losing his film career over his facial damage. … Read More He claimed to have turned down major roles in two Hollywood movies, including The Sting (although he did appear in the 1983 sequel The Sting II).<br /><br /> When the UK government raised taxes on personal income, Reed initially declined to join the exodus of major British film stars to Hollywood and other more tax-friendly locales. In the late 1970s Reed finally relocated to Guernsey as a tax exile. He had sold his large house, Broome Hall, between the villages of Coldharbour and Ockley some years earlier and initially lodged at the Duke of Normandie Hotel in Saint Peter Port.<br /><br /> The writer Robert Sellers published in 2013 What Fresh Lunacy Is This?

â The Authorised Biography of Oliver Reed.<br /><br /> Reed was known for his alcoholism and binge drinking. Numerous anecdotes exist, such as Reed and 36 friends of his drinking in one evening: 60 gallons of beer, 32 bottles of scotch, 17 bottles of gin, four crates of wine, and a bottle of Babycham. He subsequently revised the story, claiming he drank 106 pints of beer on a two-day binge before marrying Josephine Burge; "The event that was reported actually took place during an arm-wrestling competition in Guernsey about 15 years ago, it was highly exaggerated." Read Less THIRTIES 1971 33 Years Old At the peak of his career, in 1971, British exhibitors voted Reed 5th most popular star at the box office. … Read More Reed was born in Wimbledon, to sports journalist Peter Reed and his wife Marcia (nÃ©e Napier-Andrews). He was the nephew of film director Sir Carol Reed, and grandson of May Pinney Reed, allegedly the mistress of the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

Reed claimed to have been a descendant (through an illegitimate step) of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia. Reed attended Ewell Castle School in Surrey. He claimed to have been expelled from more than a dozen schools. Oliver's brother Simon Reed, a sports journalist, works for British Eurosport. Read Less 1973 35 Years Old Steve McQueen told the story that in 1973 he flew to the UK to discuss a film project with Reed and suggested the two men visit a London nightclub. … Read More They ended up on a marathon pub crawl during which Reed got so drunk he vomited on McQueen. Read Less 1974 36 Years Old Reed became a close friend and drinking partner of The Who drummer Keith Moon in 1974 while working together on the film version of Tommy. … Read More With their reckless lifestyles Reed and Moon shared much in common, and both cited the hard drinking actor Robert Newton as a role model. Christopher Lee, a friend and colleague of Reed, commented on his alcoholism in 2014: "when he started, after number eight, he became a complete monster.

It was awful to see." Read Less Show Less Reed was often irritated that his appearances on TV chat shows concentrated on his drinking feats rather than his latest film. In September 1975, in front of a speechless Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, the bellicose Reed had a glass of whisky poured over his head on-camera by an enraged Shelley Winters (Winters had been upset by Reed's derogatory comments toward women). … Read More David Letterman cut to a commercial when Reed became belligerent after being asked too many questions about his drinking during an August 1987 appearance on Late Night with David Letterman.<br /><br /> He was held partly responsible for the demise of BBC1's Sin on Saturday after some typically forthright comments on the subject of lust, the sin featured on the first programme. The show had many other problems, and a fellow guest revealed that Reed recognised this when he arrived and virtually had to be dragged in front of the cameras. Near the end of his life, he was brought onto some TV shows specifically for his drinking; for example The Word put bottles of liquor in his dressing room so he could be secretly filmed getting drunk.

He left the set of the Channel 4 television discussion programme After Dark after arriving drunk and attempting to kiss feminist writer Kate Millett, uttering the memorable phrase, "Give us a kiss, big tits". Read Less … In 1964 he starred in the first of six films directed by Michael Winner, The System, (known as The Girl-Getters in the U.S.). More Hammer Films productions followed, such as The Brigand Of Kandahar (1965). He first collaborated with director Ken Russell in a TV biopic of Claude Debussy in 1965, and later played Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Russell's subsequent TV biopic Dante's Inferno (1967). <br /><br />In 1966 Reed played a mountain fur trapper, with co-star Rita Tushingham, in an action-adventure film The Trap with a soundtrack by British film composer Ron Goodwin. Reed's presence could be seen in The Shuttered Room (1967).

Reed played the role of Bill Sikes, alongside Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Mark Lester, Jack Wild and Harry Secombe, in his uncle Carol Reed's screen version of the successful stage musical Oliver! (1968). The following year, Reed played the title role in Michael Winner's World War II action-comedy Hannibal Brooks (1969), alongside an elephant named Lucy. <br /><br />His next project with Ken Russell, a film version of Women in Love (1969), was first released during the same year, in which he wrestled naked with Alan Bates in front of a log fire. Read Less The controversial Russell film The Devils (1971) was followed in the summer of 1975 by the same director's musical film Tommy, based on The Who's 1969 concept album Tommy and starring its lead singer Roger Daltrey. … Read More Reed made another contribution to the horror genre, acting alongside Karen Black, Bette Davis, and Burgess Meredith in the Dan Curtis film Burnt Offerings (1976).<br /><br /> An anecdote holds that Reed could have been chosen to play James Bond.

In 1969, Bond franchise producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were looking for a replacement for Sean Connery and Reed (who had recently played a resourceful killer in The Assassination Bureau) was mentioned as a possible choice for the role. Whatever the reason, Reed was never to play Bond. After Reed's death, the Guardian Unlimited called the casting decision, "One of the great missed opportunities of post-war British movie history."<br /><br /> Reed starred as Athos the musketeer in three films based on Alexandre Dumas' novels. First in The Three Musketeers (1973), followed by The Four Musketeers (1974), and The Return of the Musketeers (1989). He starred in a similarly historical themed film, Crossed Swords (UK title The Prince and the Pauper) (1977), as Miles Hendon alongside Raquel Welch and a grown up Mark Lester, who had worked with Reed in Oliver! Reed returned to horror as Dr. Hal Raglan in David Cronenberg's 1979 film The Brood.

Read Less FORTIES 1981 43 Years Old … However, Cliff Goodwin's biography of Reed, Evil Spirits, offered the theory that Reed was not always as drunk on chat shows as he appeared to be, but rather was acting the part of an uncontrollably sodden former star to liven things up, at the producers' behests. Read Less In October 1981 he was arrested in Vermont, where he was acquitted of disturbing the peace while drunk. … Read More However, he pleaded no contest to two assault charges and was fined $1,200. He was banned from Georgia as a result. Read Less 1985 47 Years Old In 1985, he married Josephine Burge, to whom he was still married at the time of his death. … Read More In his last years, Reed and Burge lived in Churchtown, County Cork, Ireland.

Read Less 1987 49 Years Old In December 1987, Reed, who was overweight and already suffered from gout, became seriously ill with kidney problems as a result of his alcoholism and had to abstain from drinking for over one year on the advice of his doctor. … Read More In later years, Reed could often be seen quietly drinking with his wife, Josephine Burge, at the bar of the White Horse Hotel in Dorking, Surrey, not far from his home in Okewood Hill. When working in London, he was often found at the The Duke of Hamilton pub in Hampstead, an area and pub he often frequented earlier in his career with Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton.<br /><br /> In his final years, when he lived in Ireland, he was a regular in the one-roomed O'Brien's Bar in Churchtown, County Cork, close to the 13th-century cemetery in the heart of the village where he was laid to rest.

Read Less LATE ADULTHOOD 1999 61 Years Old Reed died from a heart attack during a break from filming Gladiator in Valletta, Malta, on 2 May 1999. … Read More He was 61 years old. A fellow Gladiator actor Omid Djalili said in 2016: "He hadn't had a drink for months before filming started Everyone said he went the way he wanted, but that's not true. It was very tragic. He was in an Irish bar and was pressured into a drinking competition. He should have just left, but he didn't."<br /><br /> The film had to be completed using computer-generated imagery (CGI) techniques and, in one place, a mannequin. Despite this, he was posthumously nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.<br /><br /> Reed's funeral was held in Churchtown, County Cork, where he had spent the last years of his life. The song "Consider Yourself" from the film Oliver!

was played at Reed's funeral.<br /><br /> After compulsory military service, in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Reed commenced his thespian career as an extra in films in the late 1950s. He appeared uncredited in two Norman Wisdom films, The Square Peg (1958) and The Bulldog Breed (1960), in which Reed played the leader of a gang of Teddy Boys roughing up Wisdom in a cinema. Uncredited television appearances during this period include episodes of The Invisible Man (1958) and The Four Just Men (1959). Reed played a small uncredited part in the film The League of Gentlemen. Read Less Original Authors of this text are noted on . Oliver Reed - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 4:34 PM, UTC NEWS Actor | Soundtrack Oliver Reed was born on February 13, 1938 in Wimbledon, London, England as Robert Oliver Reed. He was an actor, known for Gladiator (2000), Oliver! (1968) and Tommy (1975). He was married to Josephine Burge and Kate Byrne.

He died on May 2, 1999 in Valletta, Malta. See full bio » Born: a list of 35 people created 17 Jun 2011 a list of 40 people created 18 Jun 2011 a list of 42 people created 02 Mar 2014 a list of 24 people created 02 Apr 2014 a list of 37 people created 2 weeks ago Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of Oliver Reed's work have you seen? User Polls Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 win & 2 nominations. See more awards » Known For 1968 Film Review (TV Mini-Series) Andrew Quint - Backs British Films (1968) ...

Andrew Quint 1967 Omnibus (TV Series documentary) 1965 It's Dark Outside (TV Series) Sebastian 1959-1964 The Third Man (TV Series) Pepi / Theodore 1963-1964 The Saint (TV Series) Aristides Koralis / Joe Catelli 1959 H.G.Wells' Invisible Man (TV Series) Man at Roulette Table / Cafe Patron Soundtrack (1 credit) 1975 Tommy (performer: "Bernie's Holiday Camp", "1951/What About the Boy", "Christmas", "Do You Think It's Alright? (I)", "Do You Think It's Alright? (II)", "Do You Think It's Alright? (III)", "There's A Doctor", "Go to the Mirror", "Welcome", "T.V.

Studio" - uncredited) Hide 2000 HBO First Look (TV Series documentary) Himself 1994 The World of Hammer (TV Series documentary) Narrator / Harry Cobtree / Leon 1993 Without Walls (TV Series documentary) Himself 1992 The Word (TV Series) Himself 1991 After Dark (TV Series) Himself 1990 This Week (TV Series) Himself 1984-1990 Aspel & Company (TV Series) Himself 1974-1986 This Is Your Life (TV Series documentary) Himself 1985 All Star Secrets (TV Series) Himself 1982 Sin on Saturday (TV Series) Himself 1972-1974 Russell Harty Plus (TV Series) Himself - Guest 1973 Opportunity Knocks (TV Series) Himself - Guest 1971 Director of Devils (Documentary short) Himself 1971 Cinema (TV Series documentary) Himself 1962 Needle Match (TV Series) Himself - British Promoter 2016 Secret History (TV Series documentary) Himself / Colonel Leachman 20

15 It Was Alright in the...

(TV Series documentary) Himself 2008 TV's Believe It or Not (TV Movie documentary) Himself (uncredited) 2005 20 to 1 (TV Series documentary) Himself 2004 Room 101 (TV Series) Himself 2001 Legends (TV Series documentary) Himself 2000 Hellraisers (TV Movie documentary) Himself 1995 Empire of the Censors (TV Movie documentary) Himself 1990 That's Action (Video documentary) General Turner (uncredited) Personal Details Other Works: 6/18/95: Appeared as Aleister Crowley , in the Radio 4 play, "The Death of Alexander Scriabin". See more » Publicity Listings: 4 Print Biographies | 2 Interviews | 3 Articles | 5 Pictorials | See more » Height: Did You Know? Personal Quote: There is, of course, a world of difference between cricket and the movie business . . . I suppose doing a love scene with Raquel Welch roughly corresponds to scoring a century before lunch.

See more » Trivia: In 1979 he published an autobiography, entitled "Reed All About Me". Asked to describe the book by an interviewer he replied, "It's a load of bollocks really.". See more » Trademark: Outspoken views a trademark especially his opinions of his co-stars or women in general. See more » Nickname: The Quietus | Opinion | In Defence Of... | Cracked Actor: In Defence Of Oliver Reed Cracked Actor: In Defence Of Oliver Reed Anthony Nield , March 19th, 2012 06:19 Ken Russell's 1971 landmark The Devils is finally out on DVD today. To celebrate, Anthony Nield reassesses the popular perception of its star Oliver Reed, arguing that we should remember the actor rather than the alcoholic. Behind the scenes production shot courtesy of Warner Bros. Add your comment » In 1987 Oliver Reed went on the chat show circuit to promote his latest movie, Castaway. What followed were three of the actor's most infamous television appearances, the kind that regularly crop up on clip shows or can be accessed via YouTube. There he was on The Des O'Connor Show threatening to expose himself.

There he was on Aspel And Company doing an aggressive musical turn to the enthusiastic - but slightly petrified - applause of Su Pollard. Over in the States the story was much the same, prompting David Letterman to cut to a commercial just as things were threatening to overspill into violence. These weren't the first incidents of outrageous drunken behaviour, nor would they be the last. Four years later Channel 4 halted transmission altogether during an episode of late night live discussion programme After Dark. Reed was being especially obnoxious and constantly referring to his fellow guest Kate Millett as "big tits". Such feminist credentials had gotten him into similar trouble almost two decades earlier when appearing on The Johnny Carson Show alongside Shelley Winters. She emptied her glass of whisky in his face. Reed and drink became inseparable in the public perception, helped along during the last decade of his life by his idolisation among the lad mags and their offspring (inevitably there was an inebriated appearance on The Word). Following his death in 1999 during the making of Ridley Scott's Gladiator, the Maltese boozer in which that fatal heart attack had taken effect added a subtitle to their name: ‘Ollie's Last Pub'.

Whether this was an act of acclaim or exploitation depends on where you sit. Some fans treat the place as a shrine, and yet it also sells commemorative plates, T-shirts and mugs. Isn't the point getting missed somewhat? Going home with Reed emblazoned across your chest celebrates the alcoholic but forgets the actor. Whatever happened to him in all this? Long before After Dark, O'Connor and the rest - before chat shows even had a circuit - Reed was fresh out of National Service and struggling to find his way in the film industry. Depending on who you read he'd possibly worked as a bouncer and maybe even as a stuntman. That burly frame obviously had its uses and it hadn't escaped the notice of producers either. His earliest onscreen appearances were a succession of toughs, bullies and bastards. He beat up Norman Wisdom in The Bulldog Breed (1960) and stamped on the chocolates intended for his date. In Beat Girl (1959) - a salacious, censor-bothering exposé of that newly discovered breed, the teenager - he jived away with dead-eyed menace to terrifying effect. Even in period costume he could summon up the aggression.

The Two Faces Of Dr Jekyll (1960) provided just a couple of lines of dialogue, but that was more than enough to make an impact. A few threats in the direction of Christopher Lee and Paul Massie and the scene had been completely stolen. The appearance culminates in him receiving a good kicking, but the real damage had already been done. The latter was one of a number of Hammer productions to make use of Reed during the early '60s. His place on the cast list was haphazard, meaning a lead role was as likely as a single-scene supporting turn, yet the character type was set in stone. Whether it was a horror, a pirate movie or a Robin Hood flick, Reed was always on the side of the villains. And this was a good thing. Unhindered by concerns for audience sympathy he could concentrate his attentions elsewhere. In The Scarlet Blade (1963), for example, it is left to Jack Hedley to provide the bland heroism; Reed gets far the meatier role as a double-crossing Roundhead. He may not make it to the final act, but there's nothing to stop him being charming, dastardly or charismatic in the meantime.

The highpoint of the Hammer years was The Damned, a bleak little science fiction picture directed by Joseph Losey and released in 1963. It was partly filmed in Weymouth, whose safe seaside haven is terrorised by Reed's biker gang. They're even granted their own theme tune - "Black leather, black leather, rock rock rock! Black leather, black leather, kill kill kill!" - which they casually whistle as they lay into the tourists. He keeps a blade in his brolly and very possibly enjoys incestuous feelings towards his younger sister, played by Shirley Anne Field. The dynamics and jealousies of their relationship are soon clouded out by plot concerns - a group of radioactive children hidden away in a military facility on the Devonshire coast - but not before Reed has presented us a fascinating specimen. He's a tormented man, and a dangerous one. You understand why a gang of youths would follow him: there's a threat to his presence, but also a thrill. Two years later and Reed was heading up a gang once more in The Party's Over, a particularly sour look at a bunch of ageing hipsters: "Chelsea aboriginals," as one outsider puts it.

Reed's first scene shows him pouring booze over some fella hanging perilously from a first floor balcony. It's a typically nihilistic act in a film unafraid to reveal its characters' darker sides. That man behind the dead-eyed jive in Beat Girl has returned, but now we get to spend more time in his company. We witness the girl-chasing, the drunkenness and the distastefulness. We also witness the charm that goes with such boorishness, not to mention the intelligence. As with the Hammer films, Reed is playing second fiddle - American import Clifford David is the clean-cut male lead - which only allows the greater opportunity to turn in a proper, fully-rounded portrayal. The script demands "a real bastard", to quote it directly, not some loveable rogue headed towards redemption. That's an absolute gift to the upcoming actor prone to surveying the seedier side of life. It was around this time that two of British cinema's most notorious directors had come calling. Michael Winner and Ken Russell now have a reputation for excess and bad taste, yet things weren't always so. Their works with Reed are all models of restraint in the wider scheme of things, and far more intelligent than either is generally given credit for.

Two of the Winner films - 1964's The System and 1967's The Jokers - are smart little comedies, very stylish and snappily paced. They also allowed the actor a rare chance to demonstrate his lighter side. The Russell collaborations provided him with further means of moving beyond the bastards. Made for the BBC, these were pictures about artists or composers, told in often impressionistic fashion. Reed played the likes of Claude Debussy and Dante Rossetti, complex characters who demanded a little more than that brutish charm which had previously served him so well. The Debussy Film (1965), in particular, is a standout. With very little dialogue at Reed's disposal, he is instead required to react. That charisma he'd been honing these past few years became all the more important, except that this time it's removed from the usual hint of violence. Reed was becoming increasingly well-known as the 1970s approached. His fame had reached a point where he finally felt able to work with his uncle, the director Carol Reed, without facing accusations of nepotism.

He played Bill Sikes for him in the musical Oliver!, a telling piece of casting given how Robert Newton, another of the acting world's most chronic of alcoholics, had previously done the same in David Lean's 1948 adaptation. Oliver! was a massive hit, winning six Oscars and raising Reed's profile further. His relationship with Russell had also moved away from television and onto the big screen, firstly with Women In Love (1969) - much more than its famous nude wrestling scene - and then with The Devils (1971). "Now there's a man well worth going to hell for, eh?" Reed plays Father Grandier, the 17th century priest who presides over the self-governing city of Loudon. Despite, or rather because of his religious standing, he is lusted after. The womenfolk of the city attend confession solely to be in his company, while the fantasies of Vanessa Redgrave's hunchbacked nun picture him as Christ, down from the cross so as to satisfy her. The other nuns in her order perform mock marriage ceremonies to him. Grandier, as played by Reed, is almost an extension of the gang leader from The Party's Over.

He's proud and more than a little arrogant. He takes advantage of the female attention. And he justifies such hypocrisies thanks to his considerable intellect. Yet he's not oblivious to a downfall either, and soon becomes the victim to both Redgrave's frustrated ravings and the political machinations of the time. In Russell's hands The Devils becomes consumed by hysteria, yet Reed is its anchor. He plays every moment completely straight, acts as the film's sole area of sanity and in doing so highlights the absurdities of its tale. Russell claimed this to be his only political work, and it's thanks to the command of his leading actor that it proves so overwhelmingly effective. The Devils was the absolute peak in terms of Reed performances and one that also heralded the end of his career as an actor in solely British films. The next three decades saw work in the US, Italy, Canada, even Libya and Iraq. There was the odd UK production too, but these efforts were rarely to the standard we'd seen previous. He made trashy historical epics, trashier fantasy adventures and even appeared alongside Olivia Newton-John.

There were occasional glimmers of outstanding work - Richard Lester's Royal Flash (1975), David Cronenberg's The Brood (1979) - but such instances were rarities. The key performances during his later days were those on the chat shows. They attracted the press; the films which they had been intended to promote were secondary or forgotten altogether. Yet there's a lineage between the chat show persona and that run of pictures leading up to The Devils. Just as the '60s work would gradually reveal Reed as one of the finest British actors of his or any other generation, so too would it slowly cultivate the man who sat opposite Michael Aspel, David Letterman and the rest. The intelligent drunk, the well-spoken bully, the equal measure of charm and threat - all find their root in these early movies. The real-life Reed fed off those various onscreen Reeds and soon overtook them, which is a genuine shame. The next time you see one of the chat show appearances resurrected on a clip show or read yet another celebratory article running down his drunken 'achievements', just remember that he did it all so much better when there was a script in hand and a production crew behind him.

The Damned, The Devils, The Debussy Film, The Party's Over, and so on: this should be Reed's real legacy, not slurring insults at a feminist author or offering to get his cock out before the watershed. The original UK theatrical version of The Devils is released by the BFI; complete details here . Share this article: Oliver Reed - Actors and Actresses - Films as Actor:, Publications Oliver Reed - Actors and Actresses Oliver Reed - Actors and Actresses Nationality: British. Born: Robert Oliver Reed in Wimbledon, Surrey, 13 February 1938; the nephew of the director Carol Reed. Family: Married 1) Kate Byrne, two children; 2) Josephine Burge, 1985. Career: Worked as nightclub bouncer, boxer, and cab driver; military service in the Medical Corps; 1960—film debut in The Angry Silence ; 1968–69—roles in Oliver! and Women in Love brought critical attention; 1993—in TV mini-series Return to Lonesome Dove . Died: 2 May 1999 in Valletta, Malta, of heart attack.

Films as Actor: 1960 The Angry Silence (Green) (as Mick); The League of Gentlemen (Dearden); The Bulldog Breed (Asher); Beat Girl ( Wild for Kicks ) (Greville) (as Plaid Shirt); Sword of Sherwood Forest (Fisher) (as Melton); The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll ( House of Fright ) (Fisher) 1961 His and Hers (Hurst) (as Poet); The Curse of the Werewolf (Fisher) (as Leon); The Rebel ( Call Me Genius ) (Day); No Love for Johnnie (Thomas) 1962 The Damned ( These Are the Damned ) (Losey) (as King); The Pirates of Blood River (Gilling) (as Brocaire); Captain Clegg ( Night Creatures ) (Scott) (as Harry Crabtree) 1963 Paranoiac (Francis) (as Simon Ashby); The Scarlet Blade (Gilling) (as Capt.

Sylvester); The Party's Over (Hamilton)(as Moise) 1964 Read All about Me (autobiography), London, 1979. By REED: article— Interview in Arena (London), Spring 1992. On REED: book— D'Arcy, Susan, The Films of Oliver Reed , London, 1975. On REED: articles— Ecran (Paris), December 1979. Ramirez, Anthony, "Oliver Reed, Diverse Actor for Film and TV, Dies at 61," in The New York Times , 3 May 1999. Obituary in Variety (New York), 10 May 1999. "Rogue Trip: Boisterous and Bibulous to the Very End, Actor Oliver Reed Enjoyed a Famously Spirited Life," in People Weekly , vol. 51, no. 18, 17 May 1999. Time International , 17 May 1999. Lucas, Tim, "A Toast to Mr. England," in Film Comment (New York), vol. 35, no.

4, July 1999. * * * Time and more than his fair share of bad films have tended to relegate Oliver Reed to the status of a washed-up middle-aged actor whose early promise has expired under a morass of inferior work. Certainly his appearances in the grisly, post- Wild Bunch splatter Western The Hunting Party , the snake-on-the-loose horror thriller Venom , and the comic book Condorman offered little opportunity for him to reveal either talent or screen presence. Yet there is nothing to be gained from merely pointing to Reed's long list of bad films and dismissing him on this basis. Nor would it be justified. From his first starring role in Terence Fisher's The Curse of the Werewolf to collaborations with Richard Lester and, especially, Ken Russell, with whom Reed's tempestuous nature formed an ideal match, Oliver Reed exhibits at his best a powerful screen persona which bad films have tarnished but not destroyed completely. Cast early on as a thug or teddy boy in several British kitchen sink and juvenile delinquency dramas, Reed had his first major role as the title character in Curse for Hammer Films (he had had a small part as a bouncer in the same studio's The Two Faces of Dr.

Jekyll , also directed by Terence Fisher, released the previous year). Parts in other of the studio's horror and action thrillers quickly followed, most notably the scenery-chewing psycho in Paranoiac . His career advanced considerably when he met Ken Russell, for whom he starred as the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Russell's BBC biopic Dante's Inferno . Their association continued with Russell's breakthrough film, Women in Love , in which Reed co-starred, through several other Russell extravaganzas ( Mahler , Lisztomania ) in which the actor took cameos. Reed had his biggest success as the murderous Bill Sikes in Oliver! , the film adaptation of the hit musical based on Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist . The director, Carol Reed, was his uncle, who, detesting nepotism, declined considering his nephew for the part; the latter won it entirely on his own by auditioning. He has worked steadily since, but has never quite achieved the star status Oliver! so auspiciously hinted at.

A comparison of several of Reed's major roles apart from Sikes, but certainly not excluding it—Leon in Curse , Grandier in The Devils , and Athos in The Three Musketeers / The Four Musketeers —provides some insight into his success. In the case of the first, we have a man torn between a desire for love and a destructive animal rage which eventually overcomes and destroys him. Romance in the form of Christina (Catherine Feller) can conquer his werewolf side but circumstances tear them apart. Grandier is a priest who sees no contradiction between his clerical vows and the pursuit of physical pleasure. This "immoral" man becomes the most moral of all when he takes a lone and fatal stand against the government figures who wish to destroy the independence of the city of Loudon. Athos, who drinks and fights with no regard for public opinion or his own safety, is also a nobleman whose genuine love for a harlot, Milady (Faye Dunaway), lost him his honor. In all three cases Reed skillfully conveys the contradictions inherent in the characters—quiet introspection alternating with harsh violence.

It is true that Reed cannot on his own redeem a mediocre film, but then it is difficult to think of any actor who could have salvaged anything from Z.P.G. , Tomorrow Never Comes , or Sting II (where Reed took the part created by Robert Shaw). He often seems uncaring in his choice of roles. But he clearly knows a good project when it comes along (he told David Cronenberg that The Brood was the best script he had read since The Devils ). It is encouraging, however, that recent supporting roles such as Vulcan in Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Münchausen , Billy Bones in Fraser Heston's version of Treasure Island , and the wry, drunken priest in Stuart Gordon's Russell homage, The Pit and the Pendulum , have brought him the praise he often deserves. —Daniel O'Brien, updated by John McCarty User Contributions:

Question: What was Oliver Reed's real first name?
Answer: Robert